A case that indicates separation, or moving away from something. It is used alone or with certain prepositions. For example, if English had a fully productive case system that included the ablative case, then in the phrase came from the city, either "the city" or "from the city" would likely be in the ablative. In some languages, such as Latin, this case has acquired many other uses and does not strictly indicate separation anymore.

In Proto-Indo-European, or any of its descendants (the Indo-European languages), a system of vowel alternation in which the vowels that are used in various parts of the word can change depending on meaning. The system is used for purposes of inflection and word derivation. In the Germanic languages, it forms the basis of the strong verbs.

Either transitive or intransitive. For instance, eat and read optionally take a direct object: "I eat daily", "She likes to read" (both intransitive), "Read this book", "I do not eat meat" (both transitive). Note: Although ergative verbs are ambitransitive, a single definition could only refer to an unergative verb.

Alive, able to move, think and act on its own (contrast inanimate). Many languages (such as the Slavic languages) classify nouns based on animacy, using different inflections or words with animate and inanimate nouns.

No longer in general use, although sometimes understood by educated people. Still used in contemporary texts that aim for an antique style, like historical novels and some Bible translations. For example, thee and thou are archaic pronouns, having been completely superseded by you. Archaic is a stronger term than dated, but not as strong as obsolete.

A type of determiner that is used as a grammatical indicator in some languages, and is usually central to the grammar and syntax of that language. In English, the articles are the definite article the, and the indefinite articles a and an. Some languages may have more articles, such as the French partitive articles du, de la and des, while many languages lack articles altogether.

A verb that is not used alone, but always accompanies another verb in a clause. It is used to indicate distinctions in tense, mood, voice, aspect or other grammatical nuances. English examples are can, will, have, be.

B

A term formed by removing an apparent or real prefix or suffix from an older term; for example, the noun pea arose because the final /z/ sound in pease sounded like a plural suffix. Similarly, the verb edit is a back-formation from the earlier noun editor. Not to be confused with clipping, which just shortens a word without changing meaning or part of speech.

The removal, from a text, of words or phrases that are considered offensive or vulgar.

C

c., ca.

"Circa" ("about"). Hence, a quotation from "c. 1924" or "ca. 1924" is a quotation from approximately 1924.

c

"Of commongender". Some languages have a distinct common gender that combines masculine and feminine but is distinguished from neuter. In others languages, a "noun of common gender" is epicene; that is, it is a pair of nouns, one masculine and one feminine, that are identical in form, and that have the same sense except that one refers to men and the other to women.

A collection of entries, used to categorize or group entries of words that are similar in syntax (for example, English plural nouns) or in sense (for example, English words pertaining to sports); seeWiktionary:Categorization.

A word that attaches to a phrase and cannot be used on its own, such as English -'s. Many languages have clitic pronouns, which may be contrasted with emphatic or strong pronouns; for example, English 'em is a clitic version of them, and always attaches to the preceding word (usually the verb).

(of an adjective or adverb) able to be compared, having comparative and superlative forms that end in -er and -est (adjectives only), or in conjunction with the words more or most, or in some cases further or furthest. Examples: big, bigger, and biggest; talented, more talented, and most talented; upstairs, further upstairs, and furthest upstairs. Some adjectives are truly uncomparable, such as daily, additional, and else. Many other adjectives, such as unique, existential, and bearable are generally considered uncomparable, but controversially so, where examples can be readily cited of something being "more bearable" or "most perfect".

An inflection, or different form, of a comparable adjective showing a relative quality, usually denoting "to a greater extent" but not "to the ultimate extent" (see alsosuperlative and degrees of comparison). In English, the comparative form is usually formed by appending -er, or using the word more. For example, the comparative of hard is "harder"; of difficult, "more difficult".

A term that is a different type of the same hypernym. Car and sled are coordinate terms to each other, both being hyponyms of a shared hypernymvehicle. Although the term can be applied broadly, eg, car and asteroid are both things, such usage is not useful in Wiktionary.

In linguistics, counters, measure words or classifiers are words that are used in combination with a numeral to indicate an amount of something represented by some noun. They denote a unit or measurement and are used with mass nouns, and in some cases also with count nouns.

"Dative". A case that is usually used as the indirect object of a verb. For example, if English had a fully productive case system, then him in "She gave him the ball" would most likely be in the dative.

Normally would be expected to have a full set of inflected forms, but some of the inflections do not exist or are never used. English examples are the defective verbs can and shall, which do not have infinitive forms (there is no to can or to shall).

refers to forms of words that present something as known, identified, or immediately identifiable; in English, this is the basic meaning of the articlethe; in some languages, this is a nominal or adjectival inflection.

A noun modifier that expresses the in-context reference or quantity of a noun or noun phrase. Determiners are often considered adjectives, but in fact are not quite the same; for example, in English, big is an adjective, so “the big car” is grammatical while *“He saw big car” is not, but some is a determiner, so *“the some car” is not grammatical while “He saw some car” is. In English, adjectives can sometimes stand alone without a noun, while determiners nearly always can (contrast *“He saw big” with “He saw some”), such that they are sometimes considered pronouns as well as adjectives.

Taking particular stress. English's reflexive pronouns double as emphatic ones, as in "I myself have not seen it" (where "myself" emphasizes the role of the speaker); other languages often have emphatic pronouns that they distinguish from weak or clitic pronouns.

Optionally taking a direct object that is semantically equivalent to the subject in the intransitive construction. For example, the same thing happens to the window in "The window broke" (subject) as in "I broke the window" (direct object), so break is an ergative verb.

A nonstandard spelling used to show a speaker's pronunciation, especially when it is a pronunciation the writer considers dialectal or nonstandard. Some distinguish eye dialect from pronunciation respelling, and separate templates exist (Template:eye dialect of, Template:pronunciation spelling.)

F

f

"Feminine"; said of a word belonging to the feminine gender, which is usually contrasted with the masculine gender, and also often with a neuter gender.

A grammatical person that indicates the speaker him/her/itself, or a group to which the speaker belongs. Examples are the English pronouns I and we.

α/β/γ/… form(s)

Denoting forms of a word that are grouped together because of an important shared characteristic which is not shared by forms in the other group(s). Spellings may be grouped in various ways: simply by surface features (such as scion), by the different pronunciations they represent (as for sny2), by inflexional differences (as for finocchio), by dialectical differences (as for traveler's diarrhea), or for a variety of etymological (e.g.thrombendarteriectomy) or other reasons.

Describes a context where word choice and syntax are primarily limited to those terms and constructions that are accepted by academia or official institutions as most appropriate and correct. Informal terms, frequently those that originate through casual speech (colloquial), are often inappropriate in formal contexts. Examples with varying degrees of formality include: official or legal documents, formal essays, job interviews, etc.

G

A way of classifying nouns in some languages. In such languages, each noun has a specific gender (often determined by its meaning and/or form), and other words (especially adjectives and pronouns) will often change form to agree with the noun's gender. See also noun class.

H

Used to refer to past objects and concepts. Such terms referring to things that no longer exist or are no longer in use, such as Czechoslovakia or stomacher, or concepts that are no longer current, such as phlogiston.

A term describing something that is formed by other smaller, somehow combined or related things. For example, tree is a holonym of leaf; body is a holonym of arm; Canada is a holonym of Alberta etc. The opposite of holonym, which describes things that are part of a whole, is called meronym.

A newly coined term, or newly adopted sense of an existing term, that has become very popular in a short time. It is kept provisionally as it is likely to remain in usage, even though it fails the "spanning at least one year" requirement of the Criteria For Inclusion on Wiktionary.

A term indicating a category another term is part of. For example, animal is a hypernym of bird, which is in turn a hypernym of eagle. The opposite of hypernym, which indicates terms pertaining to a category, is hyponym.

The splitting of a word across a line boundary, with a hyphen at the end of the first part. For example, the hyphenation of hyphenation is given as "hy‧phen‧ation" meaning that it is split across a line break as hy-phenation or as hyphen-ation.

A specific term within a category described by another term. For instance, alternative rock is a hyponym of rock, which in turn is a hyponym of music. The opposite of hyponym, which describes larger categories, is hypernym.

Progressive. The aspect of a verb, indicating that the action described is, was or will be continuing, uncompleted or repeated. A combination of 'be' + the present participle ('-ing' form) of the verb. So one can have present imperfect(ive) (or progressive, or continuous) e.g., "is painting" or past imperfect(ive) – e.g., "was painting". (Contrast perfective.)

imperfective past

A verb form of imperfectiveaspect and pasttense, which is used to describe an action or event which was happening continuously or repeatedly in the past, as in “Tom was painting the fence” or “Tom used to paint the fence.”

A verb that cannot take a subject, or takes a third-person subject pronoun (e.g. it) without an antecedent. The term weather verb is also sometimes used in some texts, since such verbs of weather (e.g. rain) are impersonal in many languages.

Not animate; not alive, or able to move, think and act on its own. For verbs, this indicates that they are usually applied only inanimate objects or concepts, and rarely used in the first or second persons.

In languages with inflection, lacking distinct inflected forms when they would be expected to exist. Indeclinable words have the same form in all cases. For example, the English noun sheep is invariable because its plural is also sheep. Acronyms and loanwords are often indeclinable in many languages.

refers to forms of words that present something as not yet identified or not immediately identifiable; in English, this is the basic meaning of the articlea; in some languages, this is a nominal or adjectival inflection.

Denotes spoken or written words that are used primarily in a familiar, or casual, context, where a clear, formal equivalent often exists that is employed in its place in formal contexts. Compare similar tag colloquial.

The change in form of a word to represent various grammatical categories, such as tense (e.g. past tense, present tense, future tense) or number (e.g. singular, plural). For example, the verb run may be inflected to produce runs, ran, and running. In highly inflected languages, such as Latin, there will be many more forms. Two major types of inflection are conjugation (inflection of verbs) and declension (inflection of nouns, adjectives, and pronouns).

An abbreviation that is formed from the initial letters of a sequence of words. Initialisms that are pronounced as words, such as UNICEF, are usually called acronyms, so the term initialism is generally only used for those that are pronounced letter by letter, such as USA.

Of a verb: not taking a direct object; not transitive. For example, the verb listen does not usually take a direct object; one cannot say *"I listened the ball".

Of an adposition (such as a preposition), or of an adverb: not having a nominal complement. For example, using the following prepositions or adverbs without a complement (here in parentheses): down (the stairs), under (the bridge), inside (the building), aboard (the ship), underneath (the table), here, there, abroad, downtown, afterwards, …

J

K

The classically based artificial Greek language created at the start of Greece's independence from the Ottoman Empire. It was used for all formal and official purposes until 1976. In Wiktionary, Katharevousa terms are entered under (modern) Greek.

L

The headword or citation form of an inflected word, especially the form found in a bilingual dictionary. This is usually, for verbs: the infinitive or the present tense, first person singular; and for nouns: the nominitive singular. (In linguistics, the word is sometimes used in a sense that includes this definition plus all the inflections cf lexeme).

A word that was adopted (borrowed) from another language, rather than formed within the language or inherited from a more ancient form of the same language. Loanwords may still be recognisably foreign (having non-native spelling or unusual pronunciation), or have become completely assimilated into the language (no longer perceived as foreign). For example, in English, schadenfreude is still recognisably German, while cellar is fully assimilated and no longer recognisably Latin (from cellārium).

(from Ancient Greekλιτότης) better known as an understatement in English, is a rhetorical figure that consists of saying less to mean more. E.g.: he is not very clever instead of he is a stupid idiot ; she's not very pretty instead of she's ugly, etc. Not to be confused with euphemism, although litotes can be used for the purpose of euphemism.

"Locative". A case used to indicate place, or the place where, or wherein. It corresponds roughly to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by". Some languages use the same locative case construct to indicate when, so the English phrase "in summer" would use the locative case construct.

M

A term that denotes a part of the whole that is denoted by another term. The word "arm" is a meronym of the word "body". The term which describes the whole, as being an opposite of meronym, is holonym.

N

A term or construction that is generally found only in questions, negative sentences, and certain other “negative polarity” contexts; for example, anyone is a negative polarity item, as one can say "I did not see anyone" and "Did you see anyone?", but not *"I saw anyone."

A case that is usually used as the subject of a verb. For example, if English had a fully productive case system, then (the) man in "The man threw the ball" would most likely be in the nominative case.

In some languages (especially the Bantu languages), a way of classifying nouns much like gender, but determined by other considerations such as the type and shape of an object, whether it is animate or inanimate, a person or non-person, and so on.

The category that a word belongs to, with respect to how it's used as part of phrases and sentences. Examples are nouns, adjectives and verbs. The part of speech is inherent in the word itself, and is independent of any specific role that the word may have within any given sentence (e.g. subject, direct object). Words may belong to more than one part of speech: English this is both a determiner and a pronoun, while coat is both a noun and a verb.

A word that does not fall into the usual part of speech categories, but which modifies another word or the sentence as a whole. The English term like is used as a particle in many dialects. Particles are more common in other Indo-European languages (e.g. German doch, which marks a sentence as being surprising or rebutting a previous statement) and in East Asian languages (e.g. Japanese は, which marks the topic of a sentence). Many clitics are particles.

Indicating partialness or indeterminateness, such as "some water" or "something nice". In Dutch, it is a word form that is used when referring to undetermined things or amounts. French has special partitive articles which qualify indefinite mass nouns.

The aspect of a verb, indicating that the action described is completed. Consists of the verb 'have' + the past participle e.g., 'Tom has painted the fence' 'Tom has taken medicine'. Depending on the tense of 'have' one can have present perfect(ive), which are represented in the previous examples, or past perfective: 'Tom had painted the fence', 'Tom had taken medicine'. 'To have painted' is a perfective infinitive (cf.Imperfective.)

perfective past

Simple past, a verb form of perfectiveaspect and pasttense, which is used to describe an action or event which is regarded as having been completed in the past, in relation to a time already in the past. E.g., Tom had painted the fence before I got there.

Using more words to produce a grammatical effect. For example more fair is a periphrastic form of fairer and the English future tense requires periphrastic usage "I will write an essay." (cf.monolectic and polylectic).

A grammatical number that indicates multiple items or individuals. Most languages contrast it with singular, in which case plural indicates two or more. Some languages also possess the dual or even trial numbers; in these cases the plural indicates more than the highest specific number.

A noun (or a sense of a noun) that is inherently plural and is not used (or is not used in the same sense) in the singular, such as pants in the senses of "trousers" and "underpants", or wheels in the sense of "car". However, in practice, most pluralia tantum are found in the singular in rare cases. (SeeCategory:English pluralia tantum.)

In Germanic languages, a verb that displays (or historically displayed) ablaut in the present tense, and thereby had present tense forms resembling the past (or preterite) tense of a strong verb. Most languages have no more than a handful of such verbs, and they are often used as auxiliary verbs. English examples are shall, can, may. Contrast strong verb, weak verb.

Used to form new words and phrases. For example, when a new verb appears in Modern English, the productive suffix -ed is used to form its past participle; by contrast, the suffix -en appears in many existing past participles, but is not productive, in that it is not (usually) used to form new ones.

A kind of noun that usually refers to a specific, unique thing, such as Earth and the Alps, though one language's proper noun may translate to another language using a common (not proper) noun. In English, proper nouns are usually capitalized, as are common nouns and adjectives derived from proper nouns. The same word may have both common-noun and proper-noun senses (such as German, which is both a proper noun denoting a certain language, and a common noun denoting a person from Germany), and most proper nouns can sometimes be used as common nouns (e.g., John is a proper noun that is a first name, but can be used a common noun with plural Johns meaning “people named John”).

The part of a word that forms its core and gives its most basic meaning; also the part of the word that is left when all affixes are removed. For example, in insubordination, the root is ord, while in unspeakableness it is speak. The root is often the first part of the word (as in Uralic and often in Indo-European languages), but it may also be the last part, or it may only consist of the consonants of the word (as in the Afro-Asiatic languages). A word that consists of more than one root is a compound.

S

SAMPA, a set of systems for representing the phonemes of various languages in plain ASCII text. Not to be confused with X–SAMPA, the system for representing the full International Phonetic Alphabet in plain ASCII text.

A Latin adverb meaning "thus, so". It is traditionally placed inside square brackets and used in quotations to indicate that the preceding is not a copying error, but is in fact a verbatim reflection of the source. (For example, if a source contains a typographical error, someone quoting the source might add [sic] to make clear that the error was in the original source.)

Denotes language that is unique to a particular profession or subject, i.e. jargon. Also refers to the specialized language of a social group, sometimes used to make what is said unintelligible to those who are not members of the group, i.e. cant. Such language is usually outside of conventional usage, and is mostly inappropriate in formal contexts.

An inflection, or different form, of a comparable adjective showing a relative quality, denoting "to the ultimate extent" (see alsocomparative and degrees of comparison). In English, the superlative form is often formed by appending -est, or using the word most. For example, the superlative of big is "biggest"; of confident, "most confident".

T

A grammatical person that indicates someone or something that is neither the person or group to which the speaker belongs, nor the person or group that the speaker is speaking to. Examples are the English pronouns he, she, it, this, that, and so on. All nouns are generally considered third person.

A noun that cannot be used freely with numbers or the indefinite article, and which therefore takes no plural form. For example, the English noun information is a mass noun, at least in its principal senses. For those senses, we cannot say that we have *one information, nor that we have *many information (or *many informations). Many languages do not distinguish between countable and uncountable nouns. Antonym: countable, or count noun.